Over the past week, I've seen many posts on my social media platforms about the racial inequities and oppression that have taken place as of late.
I love that these platforms are used to raise dialogue and invite discourse for these social justice issues. I feel like this is such a healthy and necessary action to take. I just hope that we are also reminded that these issues have been long occurring since well before the existence of social media, news platforms and camera phones, and will continue to do so unless we each become critically aware of the power we have, as individuals, to make a difference.
I share a quote below that I hope will encourage critical analysis within you, so that you - and I - and each of us, can better explore, bring to awareness, and make changes to any of our unhealthy and oppressive unconscious biases.
Racial inequities and oppression are largely structural and systemic, but we can either choose to reinforce those foundations or help to dismantle them at their roots.
This practice of racial elitism comes in the form of how public policies are made, of how institutions are formed, of who makes up collective representation in politics/media/data (yes, even data is flawed and biased and has roots of discriminatory practices), of how beauty standards are measured, of what is lawful, and of what is considered 'moral,' 'ethical,' 'evil,' and 'good,' - and of many other societal norms.
They work in ways that continue to reinforce the notion that elitism between the 'races' exist and should continue to exist. It gives power, privilege, access, preferential treatment and opportunities to some, while making those same treatments elusive to others. What it can look like is: the 'whiter' you are, the more those opportunities are afforded to you, and the more 'coloured' you are, the less these opportunities are afforded to you. It comes at the expense of people of colour and results in chronic adverse effects that not only result in immediate damage, but can also lead to long-term psychological trauma, identity crises and unhealthy racial attitudes. From these, stem the plethora of the world's social issues - that anything other than 'whiteness' becomes problematised. Case in point was this week's news of George Floyd - would these same actions have been taken by the officers on duty if George Floyd was 'white?'
Whilst structural racism is incredibly pervasive, it exists as a result of the continued learning of these racial biases that we can instead be challenging, disrupting and dismantling at every opportunity we have.
Let this be an invitation to bring awareness to your every interaction around race, and catch yourself as you find yourself making psychological shortcuts on 'race' and racial profiling - where have your thoughts and responses been learned from? How do they serve you? How do they serve (or more accurately, oppress) those communities you have racially profiled? How do they continue the unhealthy societal narratives we are fed? And how do they damage the social fabric of harmony in diversity and inclusion?
It is profound internal work to be doing - but we cannot afford not to.
Then, once you have brought awareness to the internal narratives and unconscious biases you have around 'race,' extend that to the lack of diversity that exists in narratives around physical ability, psychosocial and biocognitive mental health, gender norms, cultural norms, sexual identity and orientation, age, religiousity and spirituality, to name but a few.
I have come to learn in the last few years just how limiting and oppressive my own attitudes and narratives around these social issues have been and make it a commitment to work on these in my every thought and interaction. I am here to unlearn the narratives that we have, for far too long, neither questioned nor challenged.
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
jbbartram-illu
germansingergirl